Mileage Insanity

July 4th Giro meetup

It's officially mid-summer around here and so by now the 82°F, 90% relative humidity pre-dawn morning air is starting to feel positively cool despite the little rivulets of sweat running down your face and dripping onto the top tube. On the plus side, it looks like we are getting into our regular summer weather pattern with gradually increasing clouds during the day culminating in afternoon thunderstorms. That at least cools thing down just a little bit, although sometimes at the expense of even higher humidity. Riders are going through insane amounts of water, often spiked with some sort of electrolyte mix, even on the shorter weekday rides, some of which are starting earlier and earlier in the morning. So ... situation normal.

Tuesday was July 4th, and so of course there was a "holiday Giro." The Seabrook bridge is still out, and although it was originally scheduled to be re-opened a couple days ago, they sent out an announcement saying it would be another two to three weeks because of "unanticipated structural issues." The alternate route we've been taking isn't quite a good and includes a few places where the road is perpetually flooded because the Sewerage & Water Board doesn't seem to feel any great sense of urgency when it comes to fixing long-standing water leaks in out-of-the-way locations. Even so, there was a good enough turnout on Tuesday that included Rachael (aka Red) in town from Texas, and Tim who seems to be getting back into consistent riding. As we rounded the sharp corner at the bottom of the Danziger bridge people started yelling about a flat that turned out to be Barry's. I turned around just before the spot where the road is flooded and could see him at the bottom of the bridge so I rode back over to see if he needed help, which he did. Although he was riding regular tires with tubes, the tire bead was stuck like glue to the rim and no amount of thumb force could dislodge it. It wasn't even possible to get a tire tool in there. After spending an inordinate amount of time, during which the statute of limitations ran out and the rest of the group headed out, I finally got out my little pocket knife and managed to get the screwdriver blade in there. Once I got one little section away from the rim the rest was easy. Of course by then we were ten minutes behind the group so Barry just sat on the front (he was on his Tri bike) with me on his wheel and one or two others behind me and basically towed us all the way down Almonaster and most of the way down Chef until we saw the group on its way back and could get back in. It turned out to be a decent enough workout, actually, since drafting off of a Tri bike isn't quite like drafting off of VJ.

Wednesday's WeMoRi was fairly typical. I'd somehow gotten myself out the door a little earlier than usual and so arrived at Lakeshore Drive a bit ahead of the group. They swept me up around Elysian Fields at 29 mph where I inserted myself into the paceline. It was fast but things were going along fine until there was a split as we crossed Toussant on Marconi after the "backdraft" sprint. The back half of the group hesitated just a bit too long and the front didn't ease up as it often does. There was a brief but intense effort to close the gap that failed, so despite maintaining a decent speed we never got very close. That evening Charles came over so we could pull his bottom bracket that he thought was going bad. It turned out to be fine, and we soon figured out that the horrible noises he'd been hearing were coming from his relatively new rear Zipp hub. Off the bike it seemed OK, but once clamped into the frame there was all sorts of drag on it and you could see that the freehub wasn't staying parallel with the bike as it turned, so the diagnosis was that "the hub is broken." He later took it to someone who took it apart and found that, basically, the bearings had just kind of blown up. That wheel is on its way back to Zipp and in the meantime he bought a new one. They sent him the 11 speed version instead of the 12 speed version but at least by the weekend he had a functional rear wheel again.

Thursday's levee ride was the last for Brandon who was heading back to California until at least next spring.

Saturday heading out on Stafford Road

By Friday I'd decided to skip the Saturday Giro and go across the lake to what I was sure would turn out to be a ruthless beating consisting of about 70 miles with Peyton and Lisa and a bunch of the faster riders. I wasn't disappointed. We started at St. Benedict's church on Smith Road at Stafford, near where the old Priory used to be where lots of our races and rides started back in the 70s. Now there's a little subdivision and church retirement home where there used to be cattle, and the old church that had been a little farther down Smith Road has been replaced by much bigger one with a parking lot at the corner. Anyway, after a little warmup on Stafford we got onto Million Dollar road and Peyton went to the front and towed everyone at 25-30 mph for about ten miles as I hung onto the back still trying to get the engine firing on all cylinders. After turning onto 437 I found myself on Peyton's wheel for a while and with my heart rate starting to head into dangerous territory I decided survival was the better part of valor and dropped back to the safety of the slightly more substantial draft at the back of the dozen or so riders. I could tell it was going to be a fast and aggressive ride, so I figured I'd stay as protected as possible for a while until things settled down a bit, which they eventually did. At one point before we turned onto Wardline Road a little gap opened up that split a few of us off the back for a few miles. Wardline was kind of a minefield of potholes and patches but at least there wasn't a steady stream of gravel trucks, and as bad as the road was, it was better than it had been the last time I'd ridden it when nothing had been repaired and there were random sections of sand and gravel. Anyway, we all regrouped at the store stop at 44 miles. 

Saturday's store stop at 44 miles - getting hot

I don't think the speed had ever dropped much below 25 mph since Million Dollar Road, so everyone seemed happy to take a little break. After that the pace stayed fast the rest of the way in. It was one of those rides that Strava called "Historic Relative Effort." Average speed was 23.7 mph, with a "best 20 minute heart rate" of 156 bpm and a max of 174. Even so, I felt pretty good at the end and thought I'd managed my effort well while still getting a workout similar to what I'd have gotten in an actual race.

Sunday morning double paceline

So feeling pretty good after Saturday's ride I went ahead and decided to make the drive over to around Biloxi for a long 115 mile ride that Alison had put together. This one was definitely not going to be fast, so I figured I should be able to survive it despite the lingering effects of Saturday's effort. For this one we had nine riders on hand for the start. For me it would be kind of an insane version of a recovery ride. I knew I could keep my effort and heart rate low and under control with this group, so the only real concerns would be the distance and the heat. Fortunately, we would be stopping at practically every store along the way so staying hydrated was never much of a problem for me. 

It felt absolutely cool as we started off heading north at 6:00 am, forming up into a double paceline. For most of the ride the pace stayed in the general neighborhood of 20 mph, although one or two riders occasionally pushed it up a couple of mph. At first that didn't cause much of a problem, but I knew that it would eventually. We took a number of rather long breaks at stores where people were getting cold water, cold drinks, food, and at one point a jar of pickles. I bought a couple of Cokes along the way and re-filled bottles but never got close to running out of fluids. I'd had to leave home at 4 am to make the drive, so I was already well into caffeine withdrawal by the time the ride started and wasn't feeling all that great. I wondered if maybe I'd bitten off more than I could chew after that hard ride on Saturday, but after a cold Coke at the second store stop I started feeling a lot better. 

As usually happens, by the time we were over 70 miles in some riders were starting to wilt a bit. The temperature by then was pretty high and although the ride was mostly pretty flat, this section of the ride was a little more hilly that the rest. As a result, there were a few time when the group came apart without the riders at the front knowing it, but each time they'd eventually slow down to regroup. This was not the kind of ride where you wanted to leave anyone out on the course alone. 

With all of the store stops and everything I was feeling better than expected over the last 25 miles or so, but then again I had expected to be feeling pretty bad, so... Joe Paul was spending more and more time on the front as the miles wore on. I guess we were maybe ten or fifteen miles from the end when it started to rain. Other than the wheel spray, the rain was kind of nice, washing away some of the sweat and salt and making it feel a little cooler. Over the last half hour or so the rain kind of came and went and came again, and just after we got back to the cars the sky opened up once more so everyone rushed to throw everything into their cars which kind of limited the usual after-ride chit-chat. Alison, Joe Paul, and I think one other still had to ride another ten miles or so to Alison's house from which they'd started. Just before I left I checked Google maps and it was showing over an hour delay on I-10 where they have just started work to repair a bridge or something. I called home to let Candy know I'd be later than expected, and headed out with a plan to stop for some fast food before deciding what to do about the traffic situation. Shortly after getting onto I-10 the rain got really heavy in a dangerous sort of way, so I stopped at a Wendy's right off the interstate to wait it out and in the meantime had Waze route me to home. Not surprisingly it routed me around the traffic delay by way of Picayune, which really added only about 25 or 30 minutes. That turned out to be better than I'd expected, so I was pack home by, I guess, around 3:30.

This morning my legs were definitely still a little sore, so I made my Mellow Monday ride as mellow as possible. After a 372-mile week following four weeks that were over 280 miles, I think it may be time for an easier week mileage-wise.